Time to Heal

Have you ever tried to find joy but it only seemed to evade you? All of us at one time or another have worked hard to make changes in our lives, only to feel stuck. It can seem like it doesn’t matter what steps we take or what we do, the results are the same.

Over the last month, we have been looking at Ecclesiastes 11. God has used these words to stir and challenge me and to renew my spirit, and I am excited to share with you a powerful lesson found in the last verse. Chapter 11 began with a challenge to step out – to stop just looking around and to start trying. It continued with encouragement to spend time in the sun and find a way to rejoice in every season.

Right after commanding us to rejoice, Solomon very directly addresses the reason many of us are unable to find joy. Look at what he says, “So remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.” (Ecclesiastes 11:10 NASB)

The truth is, we will never be able to find joy in the present if we are nursing wounds from our past. In order to rejoice, we have to rid ourselves of the things that are the enemies of joy – grief, anger, and pain.

When you hear these words, you may automatically associate them with areas you need healing. Or maybe you have been carrying these things around for so long that they have become part of your identity and you can’t even recognize them.

Whether your grief, anger, and pain is right on the surface or deep in your soul, God wants to bring complete and total healing. Usually, this healing is not automatic but involves a process of digging deep. Often healing itself can be painful. It calls us to be raw. It causes us to do the hard work of examining our heart.

I want to share an illustration with you that is a little bit graphic, but when I think of healing, God often reminds me of this experience. About 10 years ago, the area I lived at in Virginia experienced an unusual amount of MRSA. Several people died and some of the schools were temporarily shut down. During this time I noticed a painful and inflamed area on my leg. Because it continued to increase in size and pain level, I went to the doctor. And as you can probably guess by now, I was diagnosed with MRSA.

Now, clearly, I had an infection in my body that needed to be removed. Failure to do so could result in major problems and eventually untreated could lead to death. In addition to treating me with antibiotics, the doctor did a minor surgery to place a drain in my leg. Then he showed me how to drain the wound. Day after day, I went through the painful and disgusting process of draining the wound, until one day, there was nothing left to drain and there was no more infection.

Like my experience with MRSA, our soul healing is not automatic. Often we have to experience temporary pain in order to experience long term healing. We have to be willing to diagnosis the underlying cause of our heartsickness. Then we have to remove the ugliness from our hearts – no matter how disgusting or painful. But we can be sure, on the other side of the healing process lies the promise of joy.

So today if you are struggling to rejoice, if your heart is infected with grief, anger, and pain – it is time to heal.